In a conventional system, video/audio information is edited so as to be broadcasted during a limited broadcasting period of time set as a program. Thus, the viewer can watch and listen to only that part of such video/audio information that is actually broadcasted by a broadcasting station. For example, in the case of a news program, it may be that only part of gathered news information can be watched and listened to due to such editing. In the case of a movie program, on the other hand, only part of a full length movie as presented at a movie theater can be watched during the period of a movie program, which is usually shorter than the show time of the movie at the movie theater.
Meanwhile, in recent years, there has been implemented a data broadcasting system whereby text data related to video/audio information is broadcasted as data in addition to the video/audio information by appending the text data in the blanking signal period of the video information. For example, systems called IT—vision and Intel—Intercast are known. In these data broadcasting systems, text data is described in a predetermined language, such as an HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), in a video signal period of time, which is not used in the video transmission to be broadcasted, along with the video signal at the same time. An example of the signal period of time used for this purpose is the VBI (vertical blanking interval). In the broadcast signal receiving apparatus, incoming video/audio information and text data are separated from each other. The video/audio information is played back as it is, while the text data is displayed on a screen of the display unit as a message related to the video information, such as a text, a static picture or a graphic. In this way, the viewer is capable of not only watching and listening to the video/audio information, but also is capable of obtaining information on its program at the same time.
In a data broadcasting system whereby auxiliary information is broadcasted by using the VBI with a low information transmission capacity, however, there is a limit on the amount of auxiliary information that can be transmitted at one time, making it impossible to broadcast a large amount of data, such as video information, as auxiliary information. While video information and related information are broadcasted at the same time, they are independent of each other; and thus, it is difficult to utilize the related information in a process of synthesizing video information, such as a search for original information based on the related information and correlation of a scene cut out from a movie with the original movie.